


The Early Angel...

by Helianthus21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel True Forms, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 04:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helianthus21/pseuds/Helianthus21
Summary: After they start sharing a bed, Dean has to get used to Cas' morning look.





	The Early Angel...

**Author's Note:**

> continuation of my [headcanon](https://helianthus21.tumblr.com/post/174046739753/that-moment-when-new-couples-wake-up-next-to-each): 
> 
> "that moment when new couples wake up next to each other for the first time sleepy and with the hair a mess and no make-up on.. by Destiel-standards that would be Dean waking up next to a Cas who has parts of his trueform visible"

“Alright, I’m gonna hit the hay,” Dean announces, pushing himself off his perch on the kitchen chair. The other men around the table murmur their good nights at him, but when no footsteps follow his, Dean hesitates at the doorframe and turns.

“Uhm, Cas? You comin’?”

Cas perks up at the mention of his name. For a while there, he seems to be genuinely confused at the question, but opts for a matter-of-fact reaction. “Oh,” he says. “I don’t sleep.”

Before Dean can give him another hint about what he actually wants, his brother gives an amused snort from where he’s sitting at the other side of the table. “He’s asking you to spend the night in his room.”

The frown on Cas’ forehead deepens. “But I don’t-” he starts, but God must be actually present somewhere in a far corner of this universe because Cas’ expression clears and, “Oh,” he says again, this time in a much more comprehending tone which makes Dean grin. “Of course, Dean. I’ll… follow you.”

Something in the way he says it gives Dean the urge to look down to his shoes – no need for his brother to see the unmistakably mushy grin, nor the embarrassing blush that’s taking over Dean’s face. His very new and tentative relationship with the angel had been cause for enough of Sam’s teasing _‘you-guys-are-gross’_ -smiles and though he’d never said anything, Dean’s still rather wary about displaying his love for his best friend in front of other people. Even when those other people are his brother.

Around just Cas, however? It’s surprisingly easy, this new dynamic they’ve established since they’d gotten their heads out of their asses and confessed their feelings for each other. For probably the first time in his life, Dean can let himself fall into someone else’s arms and let go of the burdens the world put on him, and as cheesy as that sounds, he feels… at home. There, in Castiel’s arms. 

Things like this just don’t happen in Dean Winchester’s life.

Except they do, Dean thinks, as he grabs Cas’ hand to pull him out into the hallway and towards his room. Good things do happen, and Dean’s determined to hold onto them for as long as he can.

Once they’ve closed the door behind them, the anticipation of the first night they’ll spend together as a couple hits Dean unabatedly. As he attempts to deal with the roller coaster in his head, Dean can barely do more than stand there and stare.

Contrary to what Sam might think they’re gonna get up to tonight on this specific First of theirs, Dean can’t even think beyond the fact that this is happening at all.

Because Cas in his room is a rare and welcome sight.

Cas in _Dean’s bed_ is even better, as it turns out.

In fact, Dean could spend hours just staring at the other side of his bed that it is now occupied by six foot of trenchcoated angel. By _his angel_ , now, he thinks, and the grin rushes back into Dean’s face.

“Hey, Cas,” he says, just to make this whole thing more real.

Cas turns to look at him with his earnest, blue blue eyes and responds with his usual, “Hello, Dean.”

And it’s crazy how these two words are enough to settle Dean’s whirling thoughts.

With a happy sigh, Dean curls deeper into the sheets, his arm draping across Cas’ chest as he lets the angel’s familiar scent lull him to sleep.

Yeah, he could really get used to this, falling asleep beside Cas.

***

A tickling sensation against his cheek wakes Dean up the next day. It’s a long and pleasant dream he surfaces from, feeling so well-rested as he hasn’t in pretty much forever. That’s why it takes him an uncharacteristically long time to pull himself out of sleepy disorientation.

When he finally does, it’s with a bang.

Because when he blinks his eyes open, he finds himself face to face with the gaping mouth of a _fucking lion_.

No joke, there’s a row of big, sharp white fangs mere inches from Dean’s face.

It’s crazy enough for Dean to forget his basic hunter instincts, and instead of being a big warrior guy about it, what he does is fucking scream his fucking lungs out!

Shrill and undignified and nearly pissing himself while he’s at it, and it takes him a few more embarrassing seconds to think of grabbing the gun from under his pillow and point it at the friggin’ _lion_ in his friggin’ _bed_.

“Dean, it’s-”

And that voice he knows, because that’s Cas’ voice, and the synapses in Dean’s brain are working rapidly to figure out what Cas’ voice is doing in his room so early in the morning and how that relates to the big lion head that’s still lurking next to him.

(And it is indeed just the head of a lion, Dean observes, and not the whole animal, which makes it all even weirder.)

To its credit, it seems to be doing everything it can to look considerably less threatening than it did just a few seconds ago, what with its mouth now shut, and backed off on the mattress as far as the width of Dean’s bed allowed.

Another few seconds pass in which Dean tries to get over the confusion brought on by the mix of feelings he’s experienced in the first two minutes after being roused from sleep in such a nasty way.

Firstly, there’s the sense of safety that Cas manages to encompass him in with just the sound of his voice. Compare that to the complete madness that is waking up to the sight of a lion head on the pillow next to him like it belongs there, and Dean’s hunting instincts are at a loss about whether to shoot or protect, or let himself be protected.

And suddenly something clicks in Dean’s head, and it all starts to make sense. Because the summation of Cas + madness isn’t so far off from the equation of Cas = safety, and really, Dean shouldn’t have expected his first night with his angel boyfriend to be any less crazy.

“Good morning, Dean,” comes the sheepish greeting from the familiar human form that Dean normally associates with Cas. He’s leaning on his elbow to peek over the lion head that, Dean realizes now, is _also_ Cas, trying for an expression that’s probably supposed to look both calming and apologetic.

Dean, who may or may not have made quite an impressive, panicky leap into the air somewhere in the process between grabbing his gun and directing it at his unsuspecting partner, finally relaxes back against the mattress.

He can’t help himself. He starts laughing.

“Jesus, Cas,” he wheezes. “Holy shit! You scared me!”

“Sorry, Dean,” Cas says, sounding so genuinely upset that Dean immediately reins in his laughter.

He moves to put the gun onto his nightstand and out of direct reach, and then turns to look at Cas – at all of him.

He regards the human head with his adorably mussed hair where it’s flattened from the pillow on one side, as well as the lion head that looks a little less like the zoo animal Dean is familiar with, and more like a very old, very distant ancestor of the good old Twentieth-Century-lion, his mane a dirty shade of gray and so long that it reaches down to Cas’ shoulder.

Tracing his eyes down its length, Dean notices that the lion head seems to protrude from Cas’ neck, which, _huh_. Not a view you get to see every day.

Upon closer inspection, he also notices that the lion head isn’t even the weirdest thing about early-morning-Cas.

Huge, black shimmering wings are jutting out of Cas’ shoulder blades. And despite the careful, chivalrous distance he’s keeping from Dean since the dramatic reaction of the latter, one of the wings is still draped over a great portion of Dean’s body.

Distantly, Dean realizes that those feathers must’ve been what woke him up in the first place.

When Dean reaches out a hand to touch them, though, Cas retrieves and folds them behind his back in one swift move.

“I’m sorry,” Cas murmurs. “I didn’t mean to-”

“Hey, no, I was looking at that!”

All at once, the rush of the feathers stills completely, and Castiel turns to blink owlishly at him. “What?”

“I wasn’t done looking. At your wings, I mean,” explains Dean, making impatient gestures with his hands. “C’mon bring ‘em back over.”

Another few seconds of owlish blinking follows, before Cas hesitantly complies, arching the wing that is easier accessible from this angle down towards Dean again.

“Can I?” Dean remembers to ask, not wanting to dive into the feathers without the owner’s specific consent. Who knows what the etiquette for wing touching is between angels, and even so, sticking a finger at somebody’s body parts unasked is just generally rude.

But Cas apparently doesn’t mind Dean prodding at his wings, because he nods his yes readily enough. So prod Dean does.

The feathers are soft to the touch, and pretty and delicate though they look, Dean judges them impressively resilient. It only makes sense, considering what they probably had to go through in Cas’ epic angelic battles.

Dean traces his fingers along the upper bone-thingy – he really needs to read up on the subject of wing anatomy – and then down, letting the softness of the feathers caress the back of his hand – when he suddenly moves over something that feels substantially different than the rest of the feathers.

He pulls his hand back as if burned.

“What-”

And then, before Dean can voice his confusion, that exact space between the feathers splits into something like lids and Dean’s staring at a perfectly almond-shaped hole right in the middle of the wing. What takes the cake: the hole stares back at him.

“Is that a friggin’ _eye_?” Dean wonders aloud, voice taking on a decidedly un-manly shrillness.

Cas draws his wing back a few inches, but otherwise leaves it in place before Dean. “I closed them all to reduce your discomfort,” he explains. “Sorry.”

“Them… all?” Dean croaks. “Cas, _there’s a friggin’ eye in your wing_!”

But, “Yes,” is all Cas has to say to this. “They’re, uh. They’re supposed to be there.”

“They,” repeats Dean.

“Yes.”

“Plural.”

“Yes.”

“There’s more than one.”

Cas fidgets. “Uh. Yes.”

Dean clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He nods, because yeah, angel wings come with a ton of creepy eyes apparently, and _of course_ they do.

“Show me,” he finally says.

“Dean-”

“Show me, I wanna see.”

Cas studies him for a long moment. Then he seems to come to the decision that works for both of them, because a dozen of those creepy freakish eyes in his partners wings open their lids, and Dean is met with the deep, soul-searching stare he’s gotten used to from Cas, except multiplied by, well, a dozen.

“Aw, that’s just not a fair game,” Dean mumbles, complete bafflement competing with his awe at the absurdity of it all.

Not all of the eyes have their attention focused on Dean, though. A few are glancing into random directions that probably aren’t random at all, knowing Cas, and some seem to be gazing inward. Whatever they might be seeing there.

“I know they’re gruesome to you. I didn’t mean to show them to you anyway, it’s an error I deeply regret, Dean, I’m-”

“No, it’s…” Dean cuts in before he has to hear another of those sad, misguided apologies. “Just takes some getting used to, ya know?”

Really, Dean’s the one who’s sorry, because while his coffee-deprived brain was all occupied with processing everything he’s been confronted with so far, he’d neglected to notice Cas’ own bashful discomfort. He’s showing Dean a part of himself he’d kept hidden for as long as they’ve known each other, and is actually afraid now that his True Face might appall Dean.

As if anything about Cas actually could.

“Cas,” he says, voice softening to a much more reassuring tone, and he scoots across the mattress towards his partner, searching for closeness. “Let’s get one thing straight here: your wings? Are fucking _badass_.”

That seems to throw Cas. He looks up – with the human _and_ the lion head, plus a dozen of wing-eyes, naturally – and there’s such a hopeful glimmer in his eyes (yes, all of them) that Dean’s heart aches for him. Only logical that he reach out with a comforting touch to Cas’ shoulder in order to quell that ache.

“Do you really think so?”

Dean smiles, clenches the hand he has clamped on Cas’ shoulder. “Yeah.”

And for good measure, he extends his other hand to the lion head and starts to pet the mane – carefully, because that’s still the head of a friggin’ predator that sticks out of his best friend’s neck for fuck’s sake, that shit’s terrifying!

In any case, the (almost) unafraid touch to that part of him that’s new to Dean, makes Cas relax quite a bit. So far, in fact, that the fur under Dean’s palm begins to vibrate.

“Dude, are you _purring_?”

The eyes of the lion that had fallen shut at Dean’s caress, open again. “No,” Cas says.

It’s a total lie, and it slaps a wicked smile onto Dean’s face. “You’re totally purring!”

Cas rolls his eyes – yes, again, all of them. But it’s a common reaction to their banter, so Dean takes it as a good sign that Cas is more at ease now, and trusts that Dean is saying the truth about liking his morning look.

“I haven’t been touched there in a while,” Cas amends, and from anyone else this admission could’ve had huge flirty undertones, but coming from Cas? There’s no ulterior motive here at all, which all the more strongly sparks in Dean the wish to grab Cas and hold him in his arms. Which he does, because what’s holding him back?

It’s a bit awkward, trying to hug both heads and the body they’re attached to at the same time, especially when there’s also wings involved, but Dean tries anyway. After Cas wraps his wings around the messy pile of bodies they’ve created, it’s actually pretty cozy. Dean could happily stay like this for a while.

“Your lion head is touch-starved,” he surmises, when the purring starts up again.

“It’s not actually a lion,” corrects Cas helpfully. “It’s… well, to be truthful, its Enochian name wouldn’t be perceptible by your ears, so there is not much point in lecturing you about it. At any rate, the _panthera leo_ as you know it was created in this image.”

The “ _Not the other way around_ ,” is left unsaid, but Dean knows his angel well enough to read his pride from between the lines.

He grins. “My boyfriend is a badass celestial feline.”

“I’m not a-” Cas tries to protest, but is interrupted by Dean brushing his fingers through Cas’ mane, which causes the purring to grow louder.

“Kitty,” Dean confirms, pleased.

Cas sighs. Which is not a denial, so Dean counts it as a win.

“How come I can see you like this anyway?” He inquires. The last time Cas wanted to reveal a part of his True Self to him, blood had spilled out of Dean’s ears. Thankfully, both his ears and eyes are still intact now, and Dean’d like to keep it that way. But still – it’s curious.

Cas moves to cradle Dean’s face, and it takes Dean a moment to realize that the touch doesn’t come from Cas’ hand but from his wing. He presses his face against the feathers, soaking in the feeling of comfort that is just as strong like this as it is coming from human limbs and skin.

He hears Cas let out a long exhale that tells Dean exactly how hard he’s still plaguing himself with worry, before he says, “What you’re seeing is, thankfully, a mere reflection of a fraction of my True Form.“

“A fraction?” Dean wonders aloud. “So, this isn’t really what you look like?”

“Not all of it, no. Think of this,” and here he makes a gesture that encompasses all three of his additional body parts, “As a three-dimensional projection of a multidimensional object, the object being myself. The three-dimensional level isn’t capable of reproducing the whole image, but what does come through is tangible and true to the original. I suppose it is for the reason of this incompleteness, that the sight does you no harm,” he pauses, training his with contrition filled eyes directly on Dean. “I would never have forgiven myself, had I hurt you, Dean.”

“Hey now,” Dean makes to defend him, but Cas isn’t done with his confession time yet.

“I put my guard down,” he says. “I didn’t mean to confront you with this sight, I truly didn’t, but it was warm and comfortable, and you were here by my side, sleeping soundly and…,” He pauses, grasping for the right words.

“Quite foolishly, I _forgot_ to hide part of my True Face from your capacity of perception. And then you woke up, and it was too late. It is incompetent and unforgivable, and I apologize for my sluggishness. It will not happen again, I promise you.”

Dean hums, working through the things just said. “So you’re saying you were too comfortable to hide yourself from me, is that it?”

Averting his gaze down to his feet, Cas says, “Yes, basically.”

“Dude, that’s not a bad thing at all, that’s a,” Dean snaps his fingers, trying to summon the word he’s looking for. “That’s a _blessing_ , that’s what it is!” He smiles, proud of the pun he could sneak into his pep talk. “You’re apparently so at ease around me that you don’t care to put on your ‘make-up’. You just _grace_ me with the natural look, that’s healthy relationship stuff, right?”

He looks at Cas, who is probably the one person who’s even less versed in “relationship stuff” than Dean is. Right. Who’s he asking.

“Never mind,” he says. “Point is: You’re showing me a side of yourself you haven’t dared to show me ever before, that’s a huge ego boost for me! And look at me, dude, I love what you got! The wings, the whiskers – the whole nine. So there’s the ego boost for you. It’s a win–win.”

And that earns Dean one of those sweet Cas smiles he loves so much, coupled with a head tilt that squishes half his face into the pillow since he’s still lying sideways on the bed.

Looking around, Dean notices most of the wing eyes, too, have averted their gaze bashfully, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d say the lion head was sporting a faint blush around the whiskers.

“You really like it?”

Jesus, Cas either is just that blind or he needs that praise like a drowning man needs air.

“Cas, you have giant wings with terrifying eyes on them, and a second head in the shape of a predator. What hunter doesn’t dream of baggin’ _that_?”

Cas frowns lightly. “I don’t know the exact statistics, but I assume not many do.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. “Not many. Probably not. But hey, more for me!”

An actual laugh escapes Cas’ mouths, and Dean revels at the unique sound, filing it away for a later, more thorough examination.

“So waddaya say?” he asks, snuggling even closer against Cas, head sandwiched comfortably in the space between Cas’ human and animal head. “Few more minutes?”

The lion’s tongue slips out to fondly lick a quick, sticky stripe across his neck. “A few more minutes,” Cas agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> my headcanon was inspired by that The Office quote mentioned above and also by one little piece of dialogue in Ch.11 of [Human Perspective](https://archiveofourown.org/works/821462/chapters/1556813) by skydark. You'll get it once you've read it and I can only encourage you to, it's a truly amazing fic!!
> 
> Also thanks to [Coconutice22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coconutice22/pseuds/Coconutice22) for taking the time to proof-read this thing for me!


End file.
